


Wherever I May Roam

by disasteratsea



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Supernatural
Genre: AU, AU Emma is a hunter, Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:38:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasteratsea/pseuds/disasteratsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Supernatural AU. Emma Swan was taken in by Bobby Singer when she was a child, he taught her everything she needed to know about surviving and hunting. Storybrooke is a whole other game though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

It wasn’t like she started out actively seeking out things that wanted to kill her. Weird shit just seemed to follow her around everywhere. There comes a time when a girl just has to accept that she is a magnet for the bizarre.

**Upstate New York, October 1995**

It didn’t take Emma Swan long to come to the conclusion that she was cursed.

At twelve years old she had gotten used to lights flickering, glass shattering and electronics going haywire around her whenever she was upset. Unfortunately foster families were not all that accepting of the fact, so after a few weird incidents they would always send her packing.

Holloway House for Children had been around since the 1920s, it was founded by the Holloway family after a scandal had tarnished the name. They needed some good publicity and so had opened up a home for kids that didn’t belong anywhere.

Unfortunately the original matron of the house, one Claudia M. Holloway, had been a cruel woman with little patience and a great dislike for children. Why she became matron of a children’s home no one had ever said, but it was suspected to be a position forced upon her by the rest of her family as some sort of punishment. That or she just really enjoyed being mean to kids.

Either way, the place was haunted as shit by the time Emma was sent there.

All the kids called the ghost Mother Holloway and none of the adults really believed in her. Fear of angering the ghost kept most of the kids in line, those who misbehaved tended to get hurt.

Emma herself had been locked in a closet for a few hours within her first week of being there. And when she got into a fight with one of the other girls she wound up with her head being held under the bathwater by some unseen force.

Now, Emma Swan was no stranger to freaky things happening to her, things tended to fly across the room when she had nightmares, but she had never been so afraid before.

How could she fight something that she couldn’t even see or touch? No one at Holloway House had actually seen the ghost so far as she knew. If they did they weren’t talking about it out of fear of what might happen if they did.

It wasn’t like they could call the Ghostbusters, Emma was old enough to know that they weren’t real. But ghosts were real, so where did that leave her?

Soon to be attacked by a very angry spirit, it would seem. After a couple of months living in the creepy haunted house she had decided to run away. When she made her attempt she had been thrown across the room and against the wall. The force of the blow had knocked the wind out of her. Her head had hit the wall along with her arm, she was so dizzy from the impact that she wasn’t even sure if what she saw was real, but the figure of a furious woman with long hair and sunken eyes was coming toward her. Emma let out a loud scream as she was tossed into the cabinet on the other side of the room. There was a horrible sound that she thought might have come from her and then footsteps rushing down the stairs.

Someone had called for an ambulance and she had been rushed to the hospital before she really knew what was going on.

The next few days after that had been a haze. Emma was staying in the hospital for the time being, covered in cuts and bruises with a broken arm. Holloway House was being investigated. People came to ask her questions about what had happened to her. It was mostly police, who didn’t believe her at all. On her third day in the hospital a new man came to talk to her, he said he was with Children’s Services, but she could tell he wasn’t. The man was gruff but he was nicer than most of the people that had spoken to her and he didn’t look at her like she was crazy when she told him that a ghost had been the cause of her injuries.

“A ghost huh?” He had said lightly, it was different than the police had said it though. He wasn’t just humouring her. He didn’t ask if she was sure or if someone had told her to say that.

“Yeah, it was Mother Holloway.” She had replied skeptically.

“Who’s Mother Holloway? That this ghost?”

“Are you really with Children’s Services?” She asked back, never having learned the art of tact.

The man, Mr. Nugent as he’d introduced himself, rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah. That’s what I said isn’t it?”

“Liar.”

Mr. Nugent shot her a look of irritation and...was that humour she could see? “Parden?”

“I said you’re a liar.” Emma responded cooly, she tried to make herself look bigger, less like a starved animal. “You’re not with Children’s Services. You’re name isn’t even Mr. Nugent.”

The man who was most definitely not Mr. Nugent did nothing but look her in the eye. Emma gathered up all her guts and attitude to stare right back at him. “I’m not going to tell you anything until you stop lying and tell me who you really are and what you want.”

He looked like he wanted to laugh. He almost looked like he was impressed. It wasn’t a look she was used to getting out of grownups. Mostly they just looked at her like she wasn’t there.

“No foolin’ you, huh kid?” He leaned toward her like he was sharing a secret. “Bobby Singer. I want you to tell me everything you know about this ghost so I can go kill it.”

She fought back a groan. “Look mister, you can’t kill a ghost, it’s a _ghost_ , it’s already dead. Besides, you probably couldn’t get anywhere near it. It would just disappear if you got close.”

Really, was he an idiot?

Bobby let out a long suffering sigh. _Kids._ “You just let me worry about that.”

This little girl, blonde hair tangled and face bruised crossed her arms defiantly. Bobby didn’t have a lot of experience with little girls, but he was pretty sure this one was trouble. He kind of liked her.

“How do you plan on killing her?”

He didn’t know if he should really tell her but she didn’t seem like the type to let it go. “I’m going to find her bones, and then I’ll salt and burns them.”

Bobby had said it conversationally, like digging up someone’s grave was a regular occurrence for him. Dimly, she realized it might be.

“So, you’re like a Ghostbuster?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. Can I come with you? I can help.”

“What? No, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Look,” Emma said seriously “you can take me with you and show me how to kill a ghost, or I can tell the cops you’re going to dig up graves. I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do that.”

This kid was turning out to be trouble for him, but she definitely had guts. He would take her to the graveyard, leave her in the car, do his job then bring her back to the hospital. It was a sound plan that didn’t end up working.

It had taken a good few hours to locate the right graveyard. The kid had refused to stay in the car once they got there despite his protests and warnings. She was clearly a kid that just did what she wanted to do.

They had set to work digging, with Emma asking him all sorts of questions and struggling to hold the shovel properly with a cast on her arm.

“Are all ghosts bad?”

“Am I going to be a ghost when I die?”

She only stopped pestering him when they’d gotten to the casket. By that time they were both covered in dirt. “There’s really a dead person in there?” She was leaning over the side of the grave, peering in with the utmost attention. As Bobby broke open the casket the ghost of Mother Holloway appeared nearby, shrieking at them wildly.

“Shit.”

”Crap”

Bobby clambered out of the grave and shot the ghost, to Emma’s amazement and confusion. How did a gun make a ghost disappear? “Is it gone?”

He quickly poured the salt over the bones. “She’ll be back.” Before he could set the fire Mother Holloway appeared again. This time beside him, she tossed him aside as though he wasn’t a full grown man and came at Emma.

Bobby was reaching for his gun when it happened. The ghost was only a foot away from the girl, poised to strike. Emma screamed as the pale hand came toward her again, hands fisted in front of her. Bobby was sure that she was dead, the ghost was too close to her, but instead of seeing Emma shout out in pain he saw the ghost let out a ghastly howl as her bones suddenly caught fire.

He had no idea how it could have happened. All he knew was that he had the lighter in his pocket and the ghost was dead. He hurried over to the girl, she was still crying and terrified. When she saw him she ran up and latched on as tight as she could.

“She’s gone. It’s ok. You’re gonna be fine.” There was something different about this kid.

 

 

Bobby couldn’t take her back to the hospital, he couldn’t send her back to Holloway House, not after she had cried and begged him not to. He asked her about the fire and she told him that sometimes things just happened around her. Bad things always happened to her, they were drawn to her.

He couldn’t have just left her. She wouldn’t be safe. So he took her with him to South Dakota. Taught her to be safe, taught her to be strong. Taught her to hunt. And she was good at it, a natural. Emma knew if someone was lying or not, she could get answers out of people. It was the first time she had ever really felt welcome anywhere, like she had a home and a family. She had started calling him Uncle Bobby not long after coming to live with him, took to the life like it was meant for her.

It was as good as it could get for a hunter until she was sixteen and started feeling the need to prove herself. Emma was tough, she was a survivor and she didn’t need anyone to protect her.

It was the monsters that would need protecting from her.

There were no major issues until she started to dabble with magic. Emma Swan had raw power in her, and she knew that it would be better to control it than to let it control her. But hunters were generally the sort that frowned upon the use of magic. Bobby insisted it was too dangerous; she was opening doors that she shouldn’t be opening.

It all culminated in one big fight. She was sixteen, old enough to make decisions, and old enough to take care of herself.

“You walk out that door don’t you damn come back!” Bobby had shouted at her as she stormed out of the house.

She walked out the door, and didn’t go back. It was the last they would see or hear of each other for a long time.


	2. For Whom The Bell Tolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Covers the events of Pilot. Henry find Emma in Boston and gets her to come back to Storybrooke with him.

**Boston, Mass. July, 2011**

 

“Dammit.”

There was a (maybe not so) small part of Emma that had always liked to make an entrance, it was probably because she watched too many action movies and had spent so much time sneaking around and trying not to get caught as hunting required. She had never been able to help herself from making an impression, someone had once told her she was like the Terminator when she was on a job. This she took as a complement because, hey, who doesn’t want to be like the Terminator? It was a bad ass robot.

Falling through the old rotted floor boards of an abandoned house wasn’t exactly on her list of Top Entrances. Luckily no one had been there to bear witness to her less than graceful landing.

It had taken her weeks to track down last creepy ass haunted doll of a whole collection of creepy ass haunted dolls that had been causing the deaths of their owners for months. Five people had already died, and that was five too many for Emma’s taste.

She had never liked porcelain dolls, there was just something unsettling about them. Their eyes always seemed to follow you wherever you went. How someone could have a collection of dolls made to look like themselves that sat on shelves staring at them all the time was completely beyond her, but she had stopped trying to rationalize the world a long time ago.

Once, the house would have been beautiful, but years of neglect had caused it to fall into disrepair. It was a wonder the place hadn’t been condemned. The doll would be in the attic, where everything had been stored after the owner had passed some thirty years prior. She just had to get back up from her spot on the basement floor first.

Working alone had its drawbacks: there was no one to pick up the slack or watch your back on a hunt, and if you got yourself into trouble you were pretty screwed. But right then she was pretty appreciative of the benefits of not having to someone there to see all the embarrassing mistakes and not having to look out for anybody else. Emma watched out for Emma, that was how it was. She did better on her own.

“Oh, fuck.” As she had made it to the door of the attic it had suddenly grown cold, her breath visible in front of her. The ghost had definitely decided to show up, because clearly it couldn’t just let her do her job.

She readied her sawed-off and kicked the door open, _a much better entrance,_ she thought, and fired as soon as it was fully open. The ghost disappeared and she ran forward into the room, gun still at the ready.

_Where the hell is the doll?_

Everything was covered in white sheets and layers of dust. Pulling the covers off of everything to search had only kicked up more dust into the air, choking her.

The ghost had reappeared while she was trying to clear the air enough to breathe comfortably, she was only a second too late to save herself from being thrown against the wall. She was pinned to the wall by the ghost, they were face to face. It was always a strange feeling, a ghost having it’s face so close to you that you would be able to feel its breath if it had one. The hand was coming toward her face, _weird how they always seem to go for the face_ , Emma reached into the bag that still hung at her side and grabbed the can of salt, flicking her wrist in front of her to hit the apparition with the salt.

It disappeared again and she made quick work of her search, ripping off sheets and upturning boxes. Finally she found what she was looking for. Objectively she could admit that the doll was pretty, it was accurate and freakishly realistic. _This thing belongs in a horror movie._

She burned it in the box, along with everything else in it and watched as the ghost burned up with it.

 

**Boston, Mass. September 2011**

She had come to Boston for a hunt, and had ended up staying for the food, because, _holy hell_ was there some good eats in Boston and if there was one thing Emma Swan truly appreciated in life it was food.

The city had proven itself to be a hotbed for activity of the supernatural variety lately. There was the ghost she had originally come to town for, and more recently a coven of witches. They hadn’t been very good witches, it was really just the one actual witch and a couple of people who had no idea they were getting into real magic. New age types she had managed to scare straight, none of them would be going anywhere near anything remotely magic related again.

She had gotten pretty banged up in the fight though, by the end of it she’d had a concussion and a deep cut in her left thigh that luckily hadn’t nicked anything important.

All Emma wanted to do after a hunt was relax for just a little while, maybe get a good night’s sleep and watch some TV, but these things never seemed to work out that way for her.

Instead of a night of comfortable sleep that she so desired she got a night of dreams that always left her feeling shaky and tired no matter how long she had slept for. The dreams were frequent, but had left her feeling more drained than usual.

It always started off the same, with her walking along the side of an old road at night, the road is wet and surrounded by trees on either side and she has no idea where she’s going but she keeps walking none the less. She never gets anywhere, but sometimes there are people walking alongside her, speaking nonsense and giving cryptic words of advice. Sometimes she can hear someone whistling a familiar tune, and sometimes she herself sings lullabies. _Tell me what to do,_ she whispers, _I’m afraid_.

Every time she wakes up before she gets an answer. And every time she wakes from the dream it feels like there’s a void in her.

 

**Boston, Mass. October 22, 2011**

The guy had been a dick, aside from the embezzling and bail jumping and ditching his family, he had to go and make it personal after he had already ruined her favourite dress. Once he had fled the restaurant she had walked up to his car with steady and determined steps, he was clearly panicked and hadn’t even seen the boot on his car.

Smacking his head against the steering wheel had felt incredibly gratifying; it almost made up for her stained dress.

They always thought they could run, but they never managed to get away. Emma Swan always got her man.

Hunting down bail jumpers was a lot like hunting down monsters, except it was a lot less dangerous and it actually paid. A lot of hunters got by by using less than legal methods, but after her time locked up she had decided she would rather not give the cops reason to arrest her again. The skills she had been honing as a hunter wound up being useful when it came to tracking people down, and she had kind of just fallen into her job as a bailbonds person. She liked it, it kept her active and allowed her to move wherever she wanted which was exactly what she needed. One of the things that bail jumpers and monsters had in common was that they were everywhere.

The knock at the door was unexpected, no one ever knocked on her door, she didn’t have visitors. The kid at the door, who had introduced himself as her _son_ and had invited himself into her apartment, came as something of a surprise. The last thing she had been expecting was for her long lost son to come knocking, least of all on her birthday of all days. How the hell had he even found her? He must have inherited her knack for making entrances, with the timing of his arrival. A near hysterical part of her wondered if he had specifically waited to show up until she had just blown out the candle on her birthday cupcake, but she knew that was ridiculous.

_What the hell? How in the hell?_

She hadn’t even been in Boston a full three months, and somehow an eleven year old had tracked her down. What could he possibly even want from her? She had nothing to offer.

The kid, Henry had made himself perfectly at home, drinking right out of the bottle of juice.

There was the real possibility that this wasn’t her kid, it could be a shifter, or a changeling, or any number of nasty creature. The smart thing to do was to test him, grab something silver and see if it burns him, check out his reflection. But in her gut she could feel that it was true, this was really the baby boy she had given up all those years ago.

And now he wanted her to go _home_ with him, because that’s just what you do, track down your birth mother and bring her home with you, totally normal.

Maybe it was all just a bad joke, _Storybrooke, seriously?_

There wasn’t much choice but to return him herself, the clever kid had been right, the cops would think she kidnapped him. The last thing she needed was to be charged with kidnapping.

It was one of the most awkward car rides she’d ever had, but Henry didn’t seem to notice. He was acting like they were on a family trip or something, reading his giant book and giving cryptic answers when she asked about it.

Henry was insisting that his mother was evil, and that everyone in town was a cursed fairytale character. Even by her standards that was unlikely. Ghosts, demons and vampires were definitely real, she had seen them with her own eyes, but there was no way that Henry’s therapist was actually Jiminy Cricket. It made no sense.

Storybrooke was just a sleepy town and Henry was an eleven year old with an overactive imagination, he was probably making up the curse scenario out of boredom.

Regina hadn’t seemed like the most fun person around, but Emma hadn’t seen any signs that she was really a witch.

If anything she would go back to Boston and contact another hunter to give the town a once over to be safe, someone who wouldn’t be distracted by their freaking kid.

Emma needed to get out of Storybrooke, and she was so close to getting out too, if only a wolf hadn’t run out in front of her car.

 

**Storybrooke, Maine October 23, 2011**

There was nothing quite like waking up behind bars with no memory of how you’d gotten there.

She hadn’t had to stay there long though. Henry had a real knack for running off. She didn’t think it had even been a full twelve hours before Regina had showed up at the station because her son had run away _again_.

Emma had never had to track down a kid before, it was a little strange to sit at a little boys computer and go through his history. He had a pretty typical room for a kid his age, the only thing that really stood out was the amount of clocks he had around the room. Henry had covered his tracks pretty well for a kid, Emma had to fight down the little bit of pride that tried to worm its way into her.

They were lead to Henry’s teacher, Mary Margaret Blanchard, who had either given him her credit card to get to Boston or had had it stolen. Either way, Regina seemed to hold a grudge against her.

Mary Margaret, for her part, seemed nice enough, if a little timid. That could have just been due to Regina’s presence, Emma had gotten the impression that a lot of people were wary of getting on her bad side. She herself had somehow found herself there within a day of meeting the woman.

Regina had stormed out of the classroom, knocking a pile of books off a desk as she did so.

Mary Margaret did not look at all surprised by the mayors’ actions but she didn’t say anything about it either. Instead she crouched down to pick up the fallen text books.

“You might want to try his castle.” Mary Margaret told her. It was like a clubhouse for Henry, an old wooden playground made to look like a castle near the water. Sure enough that’s where he was, sitting on a ledge with his feet hanging down and looking sad. She knew that look; she used to have that look. Emma had had that look for her whole life until Bobby found her. It was the look of a lost child who felt completely alone.

“Hey,” she said as she sat down beside him, handing him his book. “you, uh, left this in my car.”

He didn’t look at her as he took it, just stared at the cover of the book. “Thanks.”

They only sat there a short while before Henry started talking about his book, he was insisted that his mother was the Evil Queen that had cursed everyone and that she was the one who had to break the curse.

“Would you cut it with the book crap!?” she snapped and let herself down off the playground.

“You don’t have to be so hostile.” Henry responded and followed her down with a little less grace. “My life sucks!”

He had struck a nerve, she had given him up so that he could have a good life, and here he was with a family and a nice home in a nice town telling her it sucked.

“Oh, you want to know what sucks? My parents didn’t even care about me enough to drop me off at a hospital! They left me on the side of the road! I had a family until I was three but then they sent me back because they were going to have their own baby. ” She could feel how close she was to crying, her throat felt tight and her eyes burned, she hadn’t spoken about any of that in years.

“No, that’s just where you came through. From the wardrobe.” Henry argued, and he really believed it too. “Please just stay a week and you’ll see. I can prove it to you.”

Henry may have been close to crying too, but Emma couldn’t see clearly.

“Just a week.” He repeated.

 

It was almost dark when she finally got Henry to go home. He had run into the house without a word to her or Regina, clearly upset that she hadn’t promised to stay.

Regina had been less than pleasant toward her once her son was out of earshot. She had pretty much told her to leave and never come back, which backfired and instead convinced her to stick around town for a bit. To make sure Henry was alright, check out the town for anything that needed a hunter’s attention and to piss off Regina.

The bed and breakfast that the sheriff had suggested to her was picturesque, surrounded by trees and a large hedge. The woman, who Emma assumed was Granny, and her granddaughter were arguing when she walked in but stopped abruptly when they noticed her by the desk. It seemed that they didn’t get many visitors in Storybrooke.

Just as she was checking in the door opened behind her and the room seemed to drain of all air. By the looks on the other two women’s faces they felt it too.

“Mr. Gold,” Granny said from behind the desk, her voice shaken. “here you go, it’s all here.”

Mr. Gold accepted the roll of bills from the old woman with his eyes on Emma the whole time. “I see you have a guest.”

“Ah, yes. This is Miss Swan, she’ll be with us for a week.” Granny informed the man, he had come to face Emma fully.

“Miss Swan, is it?” The smile on his face was unsettling.

“Emma.” She clarified.

“Emma. What a lovely name.” Mr. Gold tipped his head to her as he moved to leave. “Enjoy your stay Miss Swan.”

“Who was that?” Emma asked Granny once the man had left.

“Mr. Gold, he owns the place.”

“The inn?”

“The town.” Granny was clearly uncomfortable talking about it. How could one man own an entire town?

Granny snapped out of the trance she had seemed to be under and handed Emma the ornate key to her room, it looked ancient.

Admittedly, there had been something suspicious about Mr. Gold, the way he had said her name had sent chills up her spine. She would have to check him out too.

She would stay for one week, that would give her enough time to look into Regina, the curse and now Gold. Just one week.

Emma leaned against the window sill and looked out at the quiet town, and she saw the clock moved.

 


	3. Pleased to Meet You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit on the short side, but it felt like David's first appearance should have it's own chapter.

**Storybrooke, Maine. November 2011**

When Emma was fourteen Bobby took her hunting for the first time. Not monster hunting, but regular old trekking through the forest, rifle in hand, at the crack of dawn hunting animals. She had bagged a large duck, felt incredibly squeamish when she removed the organs for reasons completely beyond, well, reason (she did see terrible, disgusting things doing the other kind of hunting, much worse than the innards of a dead bird), and had made Bobby proud. He didn’t say it in so many words, but he had mussed her hair affectionately and grinned at her. She had thought that that was what it must be like to have a dad.

She was never able to reach Bobby’s level of expertise in hunting and tracking in the bush (or on the job if she was being honest), she was much better at tracking with technology, but she wasn’t bad at finding things hiding in the wilderness.

It had been over a decade since her last hunting trip with Bobby.

Looking for the recently-and-unexpectedly awaken coma patient took her back to fond memories of those trips. They had made her feel special, Bobby never took Sam or Dean hunting, just her. She didn’t think the John Doe could’ve gotten far in his condition, but there was a good probability that he would trip over a root or stone and crack his head open, and Mary Margaret was already frantic and blaming herself for the whole situation. Which was ridiculous, it was on the hospital staff for not noticing a wandering patient getting up and walking out. It wasn’t as if his room was right by the exit either, he would’ve had to pass by any number of night staff and it didn’t make much sense for them to leave the door leading to the freaking woods unlocked at 2 AM.

How the guy had managed to walk out of his room after years of coma was beyond Emma, let alone how he made his way into the middle of the woods.

Sheriff Graham seemed to know his way around the forest pretty well, and had claimed that they were in “his world” which apparently meant he could track the guy so she and Mary Margaret let him take the lead and followed after him, keeping an eye out for any sign of the World’s Most Active Coma Patient.

They had been looking for this guy all day, and most of the night with no luck.

Emma was about to suggest they split up and maybe call in for some extra eyes - _this town has more than one cop, right?_ \- when they heard someone noisily heading toward them, she hoped it was John Doe so she could go and get something to eat but instead Henry came crashing through the trees and down the small incline to meet them.

She didn’t know if she should be frustrated or amused, if nothing else the kid was stubborn.

“You’re mom’s going to kill me, and then you, and then me again.” She told him, she might’ve exaggerated but she never really knew with Regina. The woman had gone to lengths to try to get rid of her, far enough that Emma had been living out of her car since her second day in town. She would almost feel nostalgic of her teenage years if she didn’t wake with a crick in her neck every morning.

Henry was determined to help find the guy, and was convinced he was looking for Snow White at the Troll Bridge because he was really Prince Charming.

It would all go faster if they just brought him along instead of one of them having to take the kid home. They wound up looking by the Troll Bridge, sort of; it was really the Toll Bridge whose sign some clever person had altered to read “Troll”.

Maybe they had thought the town had a weird name too and decided that everything should carry a theme of children’s stories. Or maybe it had been Henry. Or maybe she was dreaming the entire thing because John Doe was lying unconscious on the riverbank near the bridge.

The sheriff and Mary Margaret rushed over to the man and pulled him fully out of the water, finding that he was still alive. Emma turned Henry away from the scene, she knew from experience that seeing someone die, or almost die, could give a kid nightmares; he didn’t need that.

Graham called the hospital while Mary Margaret desperately tried to wake the man. She had only just started administering CPR when he coughed up a lung full of water. He looked at her deliriously while they tried to get him to sit up.

Henry was looking up at her triumphantly when the medics showed up.

The guy didn’t take his eyes off of the flustered Mary Margaret until a woman ran into the ward crying for a David and running to his side.

Their trio looked on as the new arrival hugged the confused man. He returned her hug but kept look at Mary Margaret like he was lost. He may well have been, he hadn’t even known his own name when the doctors had asked.

“Who is she?” Mary Margaret asked, sounding tired and disappointed.

Regina strolled up behind them looking pleased and explained that the woman was his wife who she had miraculously found after years of him lying in the exact same place in the hospital. The whole thing reeked of dirty business, like Regina had somehow set everything up. Graham had said that she, as mayor, had her fingers in everything in town. But what would be point of having someone pretend to be an amnesiacs wife?

The woman, Kathryn Nolan, wasn’t lying when she told them about the fight she and David had had years ago, and thinking he had just left town, but something felt weird about it.

The question was: was it the killing kind of weird, or a dysfunctional relationship kind of weird? They were two very different things, and she had plenty of experience with both, but only one was any of her business.

Mary Margaret was downcast as the left the hospital, though she tried to cover it up the cheerfulness didn’t quite meet her eyes. It had been a long day and Emma was tired. They went their separate ways after an awkward moment outside the hospital doors. Emma was distracted by Graham’s offer of a job. Emma Swan being the sheriff’s deputy was an odd thing to think about.

She went to the diner for something to eat but despite filling her empty stomach she was left feeling unsatisfied. She would kill time at the diner because there wasn’t really anywhere else for her to go. Not many places in Storybrooke were open passed 8 PM, the food at the Rabbit Hole was mildly suspicious, and she would be staying in her car _again_.

There was the option of taking Mary Margaret up on her offer. She was just so nice, the first friend she had made in a long time, and they barely knew each other and the woman had just offered her a room in her apartment. Who did that? Did she not know how dangerous it was to just invite people to stay in your home? It wouldn’t even be a gross exaggeration to say that Emma Swan could be a dangerous person to be around. Her entire life bad things had happened around her, and to the people around her. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to Mary Margaret; she liked her, a lot.

How much longer could she live in her car though? It was one thing when you could get a hotel room but Regina had made sure that she wouldn’t be able to. _City ordinance my ass_.

She had the option of both having a place to live and a steady income for however long she was in town. Two things that would make her time in Storybrooke a hell of a lot more comfortable.

 

“Hi.” God this was uncomfortable, she hadn’t lived with anyone since Phoenix. “Is that spare room still available?”

The bright smile on Mary Margaret’s face as she let Emma into the apartment reminded her weirdly of Henry when she decided to stay.

Finally, after almost two weeks of sleeping in the backseat of her car, she slept in a bed and woke the next morning with no pain in her neck or back. It was wonderful. She and Mary Margaret had coffee and breakfast together and then Mary Margaret went to work, leaving Emma alone in the apartment as if she belonged there. It was the strangest thing, standing in a furnished apartment that was obviously being lived in, that was comfortable, that she was _invited_ into. It was strange, but it was nice.

She had even been given a key, which was oddly touching. Mary Margaret had told her that she could bring all of her stuff to the apartment, put it anywhere that she wanted. She had said “it’s _our_ apartment now.”


	4. Home Sweet Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is sort-of normal when they get back from Neverland. Not normal for Storybrooke though because no one is trying to curse them all.

**Sioux Falls, South Dakota. November 1995.**

“Everybody’s got a story kid.” Bobby was telling her from under the hood of the car he was working on, she was handing him the tools he needed as he worked, hands covered in grease and oil and a long smudge across her brow. “Most of them aren’t happy and people don’t really like to talk about theirs. Now, hunters, pretty much always have shit stories, so when you meet one try not to dig at it.”

“They uh,” Bobby paused to adjust his hat and grinned “might go crazy and try to kill you. Not the most stable bunch.”

**Storybrooke, Maine. January 2014**

If Bobby could only see her now, she would tell him that he was right about everyone having a story. She was pretty confident that if she were sitting around a table with a group of hunters, sharing war stories, hers would win for the most unbelievable. Any regular person would wonder if they should call the hospital and have her taken away, poor girl utterly convinced that she was the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, living in a town full of fictional characters. Her son adopted by the Evil Queen, poison apples and all, and his grandfather was Rumplestiltskin. Not to mention that he had been kidnapped by his evil great grandfather Peter Pan and that Captain Hook had taken them all to Neverland on his magical pirate ship to save him.

In fact they had just made the trip back a few weeks prior, having trapped Pan’s shadow and used it to fly the Jolly Roger back home.

Sometimes she would wake up and not believe any of it herself.

Bobby would believe her though, he always had.

Maybe it would be worth giving him a call, just to hear what he would have to say about it. _Balls_ , probably. She was tempted to call and tell him how she had fought a dragon and climbed and beanstalk only to meet a giant at the top. He would make that face that he would make sometimes when he would shrug and accept whatever it was that happened.

_Did you kick its scaly ass?_ He would ask. She would reply with _Hell yeah, I did, threw a sword at it._ And to that he would ask why the hell she would throw her sword because that’s not how you’re supposed to use it. And even though he would call her an _idjit_ , it would be with affection and an eye roll and he would brag that his girl had beat a dragon and what the hell did they ever do that was as great as killing a dragon?

It was just that, none of that was going to happen because she couldn’t just call him up after everything. What could she even say to him? _Hey Bobby, how has the last decade or so been, would you like to meet the son I had in prison?_ That wasn’t going to happen. Clearly.

There was work to do anyway, like dealing with Felix, finding the other Lost Boys homes, and explaining to Ariel that she couldn’t just take stuff she liked, because it’s stealing and illegal.

She wasn’t even trying to go about it discreetly, just seeing something shiny and putting it in her huge purse even if there were a ton of people around to see it.

Emma had responded to Felix’s terrible attitude as a prisoner by giving him the least appetizing foods that she could get away with and completely ignoring everything he said. It didn’t stop him from mouthing off at every opportunity. They needed to find something more permanent to do with him. Part of her thought that she could just fake an escape and let Regina deal with him. They couldn’t keep him at the station for long, he was far too difficult for that and they only had two cells. (If she had to keep listening to him trying to antagonize everyone that walked into the station for much longer she would kill him herself.)

Maybe Gold could stick him in Pandora’s Box to keep dear old dad company for the rest of eternity. That could work; it would save her a lot of headache.

Even with the irritant that was Felix, it was good to be back in Storybrooke. It was good to be home, where her cozy bed and warm duvet were; and her Bug; and where she could have coffee and good food and a shower.

It had been oddly calm since their return; unfortunately this gave people ample time to do things like try to have uncomfortable conversations with her.

After Mary Margaret had shared her secret in Echo Cave there had been a pit churning in Emma’s stomach; a ball of anxiety that wouldn’t go away, she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and wanted to avoid talking about her parents having another baby (a baby that could be theirs because she wasn’t what they wanted). If there was one person she knew that liked to talk things out it was Mary Margaret Blanchard, and on top of the baby thing she was being really pushy about the Neal thing.

It was all Emma could do to keep her temper in check. That in itself was a feat; Emma Swan had always had a temper. The last thing she wanted to do was lose it and push away the family she had just found, even if it was the weirdest family she had ever heard of.

Neal himself had been edging closer and closer to her last nerve. She thought that she had made her feelings pretty clear back in that stupid cave, and again when she hadn’t shown up for lunch with him. He wasn’t exactly pressuring her but Neal had always had the unique ability to make her feel like a self-conscious teenager. At the time that they were together he had been the only thing she had and she had trusted him implicitly the way you do when you’re young and naive and in love for the first time. It had destroyed her sense of self-worth and left her wary of people and unable to trust anyone. Now he was just _around all the time_ like they were _something_. He was involving himself in her life and acting like they were a family.

Lately, if she wasn’t working she was either with Henry or practicing her magic under Regina’s tutelage. Regina wound up being a good teacher; she was strict and didn’t have all that much patience but it ended up working in Emma’s favour. It was easier to use her magic when she wasn’t thinking about it, Regina helped her to channel her feelings (all of them, the good and the bad) into her magic and it worked. And Emma, it turned out, really enjoyed magic.

It always left her feeling calm and happy, _buzzed, it gave her a buzz and it was amazing_. It made everything feel better and she never wanted to stop. Magic let her feel like she was really in control of something for the first time in her life; it helped her to forget her problems.

When they would finish the days’ work Emma would head back to the crowded loft feeling heavy and exhausted. She would practically float into bed without even changing out of her clothes and collapse into a deep sleep.

For her part, Regina seemed to be at least a little proud of her (and probably herself too, to be honest). It felt like they might actually be on the path to becoming friends, bonding over Henry, magic and distrust of the sudden peace in Storybrooke.

The other shoe was bound to drop sooner or later ( _sooner, it was always sooner_ ) and they both thought it was best to be prepared when the time came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real fun is to begin next chapter.


	5. Riders on the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I update. A bit on the short side though, I can never seem to write anything as long as I want to.

**Storybrooke, Maine.**

 

Emma had been busy the last few days, as had the rest of the not-official-members of the police department.

Three people had gone missing in the last month. In any other place in the world it wouldn’t be considered strange, people run away or go on last minute trips all the time; but in Storybrooke where no one could actually leave the town in was very strange.

They had interviewed family and friends of the missing people and none of them had been acting out of sorts. They hadn’t taken anything with them. They were just gone.

Each person had gone missing while out on their own at night. Carl Sanders had disappeared sometime after he left work, likely on his way home for the night as his wife had claimed he never arrived. Judith Kyle had likewise never made it home after a night out with her friends.

The last anyone had seen or heard of Jacob Anderson had been weeks ago when he picked up dinner from Granny’s. He was the only one of the three to live on his own and his apartment showed signs of a struggle but held no evidence as to who the culprit might be.

It was clear to Emma that all three had been abducted. As bad as it might sound, she was glad to be back in familiar territory. This sort of thing she knew how to handle.

“Find anything?” Hook had accompanied her to Anderson’s apartment. The place wasn’t all that much messier than expected for a regular apartment. Dirty dishes in the kitchen, dirty laundry in the hamper, questionably aged food in the fridge. The only thing of mention that she found on his computer was research for a horror story he was writing, probably. His search history was full of mutation from radiation and poisons. She really hoped it was for the short story she had glimpsed in his recent documents folder.

“No sign of forced entry. The frames in the hallway were all knocked off the wall though, and the bedroom doors scuffed like it’s been hit. That doesn’t really prove anything though, it could be from before.” The frames had all broken when they’d hit the floor, leaving glass everywhere they stepped.

They were quiet for a few minutes, Emma staring at the mess on the floor like it was going to shout out all the answers and Hook looking at her with equal focus.

“You’ve done this before.”

It’s not a question, not really. There’s no inflection in it, only curiosity. Emma hasn’t shared much of herself with anyone here. She doesn’t want to. It’s nothing that they need to know, even if sometimes memories of the past keep her from sleeping.

Hook seemed to accept that she wasn’t going to add to the subject and instead turned back to the situation at hand. “What do you think?”

She bit her cheek in thought before turning. “I think we’re not going to find anything useful here. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t the truth but it also wasn’t a complete lie. _They_ weren’t going to find anything useful, _she_ was going to come back later and turn the place over. She had found a familiar looking symbol on a charm near the bed. A small devils trap carved into a small circle of silver that must’ve been dropped accidentally or ripped from a bracelet or necklace during the fight.

Either way that meant it was hunter business which meant she was going to handle it herself and keep everyone else out of it.

 

 

It wasn’t exactly the way Emma had pictured reuniting with the brothers Winchester: running smack dab into Dean in the dark.

There was an empty cabin out in the woods that her parents had ended up in during the big storm a few years before. She was checking it out because if there was anywhere for someone to hide in Storybrooke that would be it.

She had been creeping into the dark cabin in search of whomever or whatever was there. A hand had grabbed and twisted her wrist from a darkened doorway, knocking her gun to the ground where it was kicked away. She couldn’t see who the assailant was in the dark but she could feel that they were close enough that she could strike them; so she jerked her arm back to slam her elbow into her attackers face. There was a grunt and for a moment she was free as the person instinctively tried to stem the flow of blood from their nose.

Emma quickly turned now that she was able to, grabbed the man by the front of his coat and slammed him into the wall of the narrow hallway. There wasn’t much room to maneuver and it wasn’t long before he used his superior strength to shove her into the opposite wall.

Her knee went for his gut and then his foot hooked behind her other ankle and pulled her down to the ground.

From there the fight devolved into grappling and Emma finally got a good look at the man when she managed to knock him onto his back and hold him down with her forearm against his throat.

“ _Dean_!?” Her whisper was harsh as she pushed off of him to stand and compose herself. “What the _hell_ are you doing here?”

It hadn’t been her most graceful entrance.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“I live here.” She didn’t even notice that their voices had raised until Sam rushed in, gun raised, and nearly bowled her over in his haste to see what was going on.

 

The Winchesters looked a hell of a lot older than either of them had any right to, she and Sam were only a few months apart in age, Dean just a few years older but the both of them looked tired and worn out in a way she had never seen anyone.

Maybe it was just that she hadn’t seen them in over a decade, she had aged too, she had somehow always pictured them as she had last seen them: Sam awkward and gawky with too long limbs, Dean eternally cracking jokes and egging them on to do stupid things.

What had the world done to her boys?

“Really, you’re the sheriff?” Sam’s arms were crossed over his chest and her was slouching as he leaned against one of the wood-paneled walls of the cabin. By the look on his face, lips pursed like he’s fighting a smile with the dimples that he never managed to grow out of and one eyebrow cocked up high, Emma figured that this must be what his sass-face had developed into. She thought he probably made that face a lot and considered telling him that if he kept making that face it would get stuck that way.

“Really. Is there a problem with that Rapunzel?” It may have been awhile (a long while) but Emma still gave as good as she got. They were a family (her family) that lived off of sarcasm; that was one thing that, thankfully, hadn’t changed.

“Kind of unexpected, all things considered.”

Emma only shrugged in agreement, a lot of time had been spent avoiding cops when they were kids and now she was one, sometimes she was still surprised by the strange turn of events that was her life; but then she remembered the rest of her life and decided that it was all strange.

Her feet were rested on the coffee table in front of the musty old couch that she was half reclined on, Dean had sat himself down on the table beside her muddy boots with a can of cold beer nursing his sore face and a grin that stretched across most of his face. Emma couldn’t help but kick him in the knee.

It felt like she was fifteen again and didn’t have to worry about anything, she just wanted to hang out and mess around with the boys like she used to when things were relatively simple.

“What’ve you two idiots been up to all this time?” She asked

 _How is Bobby?_ She wanted to ask. _Does he hate me?_

“Oh you know, seeing the sites, fighting monsters-“

“Dying, going to Hell, being brought back to life-”

“-just the usual.”

Dean had said it so nonchalantly that if she hadn’t been paying attention she might now have said anything.

“What?” she said flatly.

_What is my life?_

Fucking ridiculous, that’s what.

She couldn’t even start to wrap her head around it, somehow while she was running around stealing cars and going to prison and chasing down crooks and feeling lonely, her boys, her brothers, had both died and come back, and stopped the apocalypse, without her even knowing.

“How the fuck did I miss the apocalypse?” She asked in lieu of all the questions that she really wanted to ask, all the questions that would definitely make the unexpected reunion uncomfortable.

 

She left them at 2 AM (after one text from Mary Margaret and three plus a phone call from David. She gave them the excuse that she decided to stake out one of the missing persons apartments and had fallen asleep and apologized for worrying them) with instructions to stay at the cabin and not go into town, she would be back in the morning once she could get away.

There was still the problem of her missing to deal with; there was a good chance that whatever was going on had something to do with the reason the Winchesters were in Storybrooke.

These things were never a coincidence.

“Emma,” Dean called as she was leaving.

Lazily, tiredly, as if her body was made of lead she turned to ask what was up.

“Can you bring pie?”

At least he still had his love of pie. Emma smacked him in the back of his head like John used to do when they did something that was particularly moronic. (It was with affection, Dean would always swear.)

She would bring them coffee and breakfast and _maybe_ some pie in the morning.


	6. Walk This Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of lost my steam with this story, but with both shows back on air I'm picking it up again. Also, readers be warned, I'm not a fan of Neal and it comes through, though I did try to be nice.

**Storybrooke, Maine**

When Emma slept after sneaking into the loft at ten-to-three she dreamt about playing tag and hide-and-seek in a dusty old lot of cars and screaming with laughter as someone picked her up and threw her over their shoulder.

There was no long empty road or crying children or being lost.

She woke up and wondered how long the guys would actually do as she asked and stay out of sight, and how the hell she was going to explain them to everyone and vice versa, the town would flip out when they heard about outsiders showing up again.

Would they buy it if she told them that Sam and Dean were friends that were in town for a visit? Or if she said that they just so happened to find themselves lost in Maine and found the town.

She would have to tell the Winchesters at least a fraction of the truth so they didn’t try to hunt down everyone in the town.

 _Fuck_.

At least her day off would give her some time to plan. (She hated planning things.)

 

Granny’s was pretty dead when she got there, just before the lunchtime rush; she ordered three coffees, three burgers, and a pecan pie.

The waitress, thankfully not Ruby because she would surely have had something to say about the amount of food she ordered, gave her a weird look before she walked off to the kitchen.

From behind her someone whistled. “That’s a lot of food. You planning to share?”

She scowled but covered it up with a straight face before she turned to reply.

“I’m hungry.” She said with as much earnestness as could be mustered, shrugging and putting a hand against her stomach.

“Looks like.” Neal smiled at her. There was nothing wrong with Neal smiling in and of itself, but for some reason every time he approached her since their return from Neverland he had just irked her. “You have the day off today right?”

Emma narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

“Yeah.” She said slowly.

His smile broadened and he ducked his head to look up at her from under his lashes.

All Emma could think was _oh no_.

“Great, we should have dinner tonight.”

She had dreaded this conversation for what felt like months, and so had done her best to avoid Neal.

These conversations were always uncomfortable.

“Look Neal,” was all she got out before he interrupted her, with his hands raised between them to silence her; and there her true irritation began: he was shushing her like a child.

“With Henry, we could have a family dinner.”

 _You’ve got to be kidding me._ Her thoughts on the matter must have been seen clearly enough on her face, because he felt the need to continue with:

“I just thought it would be nice for him to have dinner with his parents”

If the waitress hadn’t interrupted by bringing her food over to her she probably would have knocked him out.

“We _are not_ a family, Neal, but I’m sure Henry would really like to have dinner with _all three_ of his parents.

I have to go.”

 

Emma had always had an issue of holding onto her anger, even when she was little; it would just build and build until she couldn’t hold it in anymore. It had gotten her suspended from school more than once, which wouldn’t have been so bad if most of her foster homes hadn’t just made everything worse.

Once, when she was eleven she had gotten into a fight with another kid in her class who had been picking on her from day one at that particular school. What little Emma lacked in skill she made up for in sheer rage. It had taken two teachers to pull her off of the boy and he had gone home with a black eye and a fractured nose. She had been sent to the office where they called her foster parents and forced her to write an apology before sending her home for the remainder of the week where she wasn’t allowed out of her room.

She hadn’t even been allowed out to eat with the rest of the house, one of the other kids would bring her a glass of water and a small plate of scraps after meals and that was all she would get for the day.

By the time she got to the cabin she was fuming. The slamming of the doors and rough handling of the food did not go unnoticed.

Dean shuffled over to her on the couch and swung an arm around her shoulders. “Do you want us to beat someone up for you?”

He had said it so seriously that she almost choked on her food laughing.

Sam rolled his eyes and gave Dean another version of his sass-face. “Because Emma’s so helpless and needs to have you beat people up on her behalf.”

Some things, it seemed, never changed between them; it didn’t make her any less angry but it did warm her heart to see.

She told them what had made her so angry, and wound up having to tell them everything that had happened in the past between her and Neal, including having to give away the baby that she had never told them about.

It would be an understatement to say that they were upset. She may even go so far as to say that they were infuriated.

The irrational fear that they were upset with her sprang up in her chest. In the panic that had suddenly taken hold of her she almost pleaded with them not to be mad at her, not to be disappointed.

“Henry’s a good kid, the best. He’s amazing. He came and found me and he brought me here.” She said in a rush.

It was all true and she desperately needed for them to know about her son and accept him. Henry was the best thing that had ever happened to her, the best thing she had ever done in her life; he had seemed so lost since the return from Neverland, so apathetic, she had no idea what to do to bring that spark of life back into him.

It was quiet for a while; Emma couldn’t bring herself to look at either of them, but Sam cleared his throat and asked if they could meet him.

It was like coming up for air after being held under the water, a huge weight lifting from her shoulders, and she relaxed again.

“Only if you promise you aren’t going to try to teach him anything.”

There was an offended sound to her right; she was back on comfortable ground again.

“You guys are terrible influences.”

 

Sam and Dean told her that they were checking the town out because Rufus (still paranoid and still in the game, who she remembered as always telling her that everything was dangerous and not to ever go out with at least two back up weapons, even if it was to the corner store) had been keeping track of a group of people that were obsessed with a town that was apparently invisible and full of monsters. They showed her a print out of an article from the early eighties about a boy who was found in Maine claiming that his father had been kidnapped by the mayor of a town that wasn’t on the map and wasn’t there when the police looked into it.

The story was horribly familiar to Emma.

So there were more people like Greg and Tamara out there gunning for them, and they had hunters with them.

Even with Pan trapped in the box he was a pain in her ass, and apparently his network of people in her world were a threat even without him there to manipulate events.

“Do you have any specifics as to _who_ these people are?”

“It’s not like they have a facebook group or membership cards.”

No, of course not, because that would make her life easier and the world just couldn’t have that.

“Look, I’ve got three missing people, and there’s going to be more. We’ve already had these nutjobs show up here and try to blow us up before, they don’t stop. If they’ve got real hunters with them then I’m going to need help.”

And she would get it, of course, the importance of family had been ingrained into the boys all their lives. If Emma needed their help they would be there to give it.

“Dude, this pie is amazing.” Dean said through a mouthful of pecan pie.

“Granny’s diner is like the only good place in town to eat.”

 

Something about being by the water had a calming effect on her, even after her near drowning experience with the mermaids in Neverland.

Mermaids are horrible monsters, who knew? Just once she would like to see mythological creatures from children’s stories not turn out to be complete nightmare fuel.

Emma had taken to sitting on a log where Henry’s castle used to be and looking out at the water when she needed to think things through. Henry didn’t often visit the area anymore. It was one of the only places in town that she could go to when she wanted to be alone.

Being the Saviour was hard work and Emma was always in high demand in Storybrooke so it was nice to have a little sanctuary to go to.

“I figured you’d be by the water.” Sam’s footsteps were purposefully loud as he approached from behind.

“Yeah, well.”

One step of his long legs over the log and he was perched beside her. “You okay?”

Sam had his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders were hunched against the cold and his collar was pulled up around his neck. He really needed to dress warmer while in Storybrooke. Maybe she could convince them both to let her get them something more suited to the weather, she could get something for Hook while she was at it. Even with her extra layers and turtleneck she was cold, Emma couldn’t imagine Hook was warm enough with how low cut his shirt was. A sweater would keep him warm and stop her from being distracted as much as she was.

“I don’t know Sammy. So much has happened and I don’t even know how to begin to explain.”

“Complicated, huh?” They grinned at eachother, when wasn’t it? “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Are you sure you want to play this game?” She blew some hair out of her face “We might be here all day.”

Sam shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ll start. I was recently possessed by the devil.”

 _Jesus_ , she thought, _what a starting move._

“Peter Pan is my sons great-grandfather, also he’s evil.”

“There’s a book series about us written by a prophet that didn’t know we were real.”

“Seriously?”

“There are conventions; people dress up as Sam and Dean Winchester and write fanfiction about us.”

She really wanted to read these books.

They went on and on sharing the strange things that had happened to them in the last few years.

Sam had died, and Dean had sold his soul to get him back, and then Dean had died and been brought back by an angel (they shared a profound bond, Sam said) and then Sam had died again and come back without a soul. It was all very confusing, Sam had once been turned into a talking car and there had even been some time travelling at once point where they met their parents in the past.

Emma had broken a curse and found out her roommate was really her mom, learned she was a princess, travelled to the Enchanted Forest where she climbed a beanstalk with Captain Hook, gone on a road trip with Rumpelstiltskin, gone to Neverland to save her son and flown back to Storybrooke in a pirate ship full of Lost Boys.

“You win.” Emma admitted after running out of things to share.

“Yeah, but Em,” Sam said with a soft smile “you’re a mom. That’s huge.”

“Well yeah, it is pretty big, but I don’t know Sam, being turned into a car _and_ time travel? There wasn’t any weird Back to the Future shit with your mom was there?”

“Ew, Emma, don’t.”

“No, really,” she nudged him with her shoulder “what was she like?”


End file.
